Online advantage

Yesterday I spoke with the owner of an art boutique in Zichron Yakov. She has a very beautiful shop with jewelry, ceramics, art objects and pictures. I and my colleagues from my Internet jewelry shop have worked in collaboration with her for many years.

She told me that most of her inventory these days is cheap jewelry and art items stamped, "Made in China." Individual works by artists are too expensive to sell in a retail shop. The taxes are so high that the final price must be up to three times that of the original artist's price, and her customers are reluctant to pay it.

At first I felt sad. But then I thought: maybe that's good news for my own business! There are certainly customers – both in Israel and abroad – who are looking for something special, unique, "out of the box" of mass produced artwork. And if they can't find it in a real shop, they will come sooner to a virtual shop. I have fewer expenses, so I can set affordable prices even for very special original pieces.
http://www.artleah.com/

When life is hard

I read a beautiful story recently.
A man died and went to the next world, where God showed him his life.
It looked like two parallel trails of footsteps in the sand. One set of footprints belonged to the man, the second set belonged to God.
The man could see that through all his life, God was walking next to him. But there were some parts of the journey where one set of footprints disappeared for a while. And he noticed that these lonely footprints coincided with the heaviest, darkest periods of his life.
"Those times when my life became so hard... why, my God, did You choose to leave me then?" he asked.

"You are mistaken," God answered. "When it was very hard for you, I carried you in My arms."
So important to remember it, when life is hard.

A Whack on the Side of the Head

 A few days ago, I bought a present for myself. It was a book called, “A Whack on the Side of the Head.” by Roger von Oech.

I was proud of my purchase - what an irresistible title!
The book was able to deliver what its title promised....

I have read many books on psychology, and they tend to deal with (more or less) the same principles of human behavior. But this book was a first for me. It transformed my thinking, in the same way that your view of the world is transformed when you get flipped upside-down.

This advice, for example:

"Want to feel rich? Start giving your money away to others."

Sometimes it's healthy and useful to get a "whack" on your head.